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Title: On the Edge of the New Century by Eric Hobsbawm, Eric J. Hobsbawm, Antonio Polito, Allan Cameron ISBN: 1-56584-671-0 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: May, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Broad but Lacking
Comment: This is a good little book on massive global trends, but Hobsbawn here loses touch with the pulse of history, and his self-describe leftist perspective lacks in concrete details. Don't get me wrong, it's a good read. I had no idea that factory workers made 419 times less than the average American CEO (some newer publications say 475 times less), and Hobsbawm's analysis of the "global gap" is penetrating. Wealth is polarizing not only within but also between nation states. As he says, we now live in a world "where people can live on cake rather than bread," a world where one-sixth of the world population is hungry or food insecure. Perhaps Hobsbawwm is at his best in this book when he analyses the insular nature of contemporary life in wealty Western states, like American:
"...to live in the the favored regions is to be virtually cut off from the experiecnce, let alone the reactions, of people outside those regions. It takes an enormous effort of the imagination, as well as a great deal knowledge, to break out of our comfortable, protected, and self-absorded enclaves and enter an uncomfortable and unprotectd larger world inhabited by the majority of the species. We are cut off from this world even if the sum total of amassed information is everywhere accessible at the click of a mouse, if images of the remotest parts of the globe reach us at all times of day and night, if more of us travel between civilaztions than ever before. This is the paradox of a globalized twenty-first century."
In this book, Hobsbawm does a pretty good job of fleshing out general trends (like the decline of the nation-state, the rise of private rogue armies, the burgeoning service economy) and placing these within his now standard historical framework; but the book is lacking in many respects. Most notably, the he completely downplays or ignores the current eco-crisis. He never mentions how one in four Americans will now get cancer; how DDT and PCBs and other unhealthy toxic chemicals continue to pollute our soil, water and bodies; or how genetically-modified foods and organisms (GMO), bovine growth hormones (rBGH), and a wide variety of hormone disrupters are being surrepticiously placed into American food and household products, thereby making all Americans de facto guneia pigs. Furthermore, he doesn't even mention the intellectual property rights issue, which is perhaps the most important issue of our time! See Vanda Shiva's "Stolen Harvest" for a quick primer.
Nor does this book make any solid attempt to link the colonial and imperialistic history of the Third World with the contemporary situation, although obviously Hobsbawm has a firm understanding of the historical processes of Imperialism and Colonialism (see his three-part history serious). Today, although colonialism and Empire have officially ended, Third World markets remain subjugated to their former colonial and imperial overlords. The masters of old continue to rob these regions of primary resources to be used in Northern industries, and they continue to imports large-scale cash crops from these regions at the expense of local, traditional crops, biodiversity and food security. This has huge effects on the local food and job market. The results are often broad-based poverty and hunger, as can been seen in Brazil and Bangladesh -- two big food exporters.
The economic North has also increasingly set out to export menial labor to Third World these days, which has an equally devistating effects on local life, albeit it in different and multifarious ways. The exportation of labor also hollows out production and jobs in the home economy as well, leading to what has now been called the "Third-Worldization" of the North. Hobsbawm gives some analysis of multinational corporations and their effects on global labor and environmental issues, but it seems very topographical, like the rest of the book. After finishing, I felt let down. A lot more could have been accomplished with this subject in my opinion.
Rating: 5
Summary: An old leftist's (valuable) reflections
Comment: At the end of the 70's Mr Hobsbawm with a famous essay "The Forward Search of Labour Halted"in which he criticized the complacency of the labour class and his own Communist Party. . Mr Hobsbawm indicated that the working class had been betrayed by its own success. In this volume, his views are yet gloomier and notes that as the Soviet Union has collapsed the impetus for collective action has waned and "private and selfish interests seriously erode left-wing values". Modern day lefyist governments (such as Britain's Labour) efforts at redistribution are weak and the only real criticism of capitalism is voiced (unfortunately) by the very ant-communist Pope John Paul II ! Hobsbawm's reflections are the result of sevral interviews with Antonio Polito, the London correspondent of La Repubbilica, perhaps the (and left oriented) Italian daily newspaper.
As someone who wishes that more intelligent and authoritative figures criticized the excesses of capitalism I found this volume very refreshing. Espaecially as it avoided environmental and multiculturalism fantasies most commonly asociated with the modern left and re-opened a more economically focused discussion.
Rating: 5
Summary: A great (and quick) read!
Comment: This is certainly a must-read for anyone interested in globalization, anxious about recent world trends, or who wants some inkling of where the 21st century will take us. Hobsbawm's analysis is consistently excellent.
In a series of interviews with Antonio Polito, he talks about topics such as American hegemony, the "new economy," the nation-state, and the depoliticization of politics(this is my favorite chapter). While I certainly don't agree with all of his projections (he believes that Russia could disappear as a proper country), his insight is a refreshing antidote to the triumphalism and vapidity that generally passes for mass-media discussion of the next century.
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Title: The Age of Extremes : A History of the World, 1914-1991 by Eric Hobsbawm ISBN: 0679730052 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 February, 1996 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Interesting Times : A Twentieth-Century Life by ERIC HOBSBAWM ISBN: 037542234X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 12 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: On History by Eric J. Hobsbawm ISBN: 1565844688 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Age of Capital : 1848-1875 by Eric Hobsbawm ISBN: 0679772545 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 26 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Age of Empire: 1875-1914 by Eric Hobsbawm ISBN: 0679721754 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 23 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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